THE PRESSED GENTIAN AT CHRISTMAS, 



The time of gifts has come again ; 

 And on my northern window-pane, 

 Outlined against the day's brief light, 

 A Christmas token hangs in sight. 

 The wayside travellers, as they pass, 

 Mark the gray disk of clouded glass ; 

 And the dull blackness seems, perchance, 

 Folly to their wise ignorance. 



They cannot from their outlook see 



The perfect grace it has to me ; 



For there the flower, whose fringes through 



The frosty breath of autumn blew, 



Turns from without its face of bloom 



To the warm tropic of my room, 



As fair as when beside its brook 



The hue of bending skies it took. 



So, from the trodden ways of earth. 



Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth, 



And offer to the careless glance 



The clouding gray of circumstance : 



They blossom best where heart-fires burn, 



To loving eyes alone they turn 



The flowers of inward grace, that hide 



Their beauty from the world outside. 



But deeper meanings came to me, 

 My half immortal flower, from thee ! 

 Man judges from a partial view. 

 None ever yet his brother knew ; 

 The Eternal Eye that sees the whole, 

 May better read the darkened soul, 

 And find, to outward sense denied. 

 The flower upon its inmost side. 



Whittier, 



